Re: SUO: RE: RE: Program wants to work with SUO documents
John Bateman wrote:
> Hi Murray,
>
> thanks very much for the info:
>
>>Almost everyone who has contacted me
>>(particularly non-US members) is contemplating halting any further
>>participation in the SUO activity. I would say that indicates people
>>do take this seriously.
>
> This is very interesting and useful; but I do not then believe
> that this communication belongs solely behand the scenes. Isn't
> this kind of feedback fairly important (or should be) for
> the SUO activity as a whole and its public face at that?
Well, it's not my place to expose what were private communications.
The feedback of any group is certainly important, and one kind of
feedback is that of who stays and who leaves. There is in population
a large percentage of people who prefer to conduct their decision-
making out of the direct public eye (particularly if there is any
perceived social, professional, legal, or other backlash to those
decisions). This is why there are curtains on voting booths.
> I also know that people take this seriously: the question was
> whether the SUO public entity takes this seriously; and there
> the only information I have is the public information....
I can only speak publicly for myself then: I take the issue seriously.
I do not separate the inner workings of an organization from its final
effect. I am considering my further involvement in the group based
on what happens in the near future. This reflects a rough consensus of
the seven people have contacted me. From a statistical standpoint, that
means that there very likely are others of similar mind who have not
contacted me (and I did not request such contact, so this should be
taken into account).
In response to Bill Burketts's comments, for myself, nor from the
people who contacted me is there any indication that this is taken
as a "silly" issue. And in response to Matthew West, in a number of
global polls (see below), a substantial number considered the US a
greater threat to world peace than they did Al Qaeda.
Murray
*
http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/peace2003.html
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2002/1109-Poll.html
http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2003/0619/cn9-2.html
http://www.dailyiowan.com/news/2003/06/19/Nation/Polls.U.More.Of.A.Threat.Than.N.Korea-439881.shtml
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
"The crisis in Haiti has been growing since Aristide's party won
flawed legislative elections in 2000, and international donors
froze millions of dollars in aid. Opponents said Aristide broke
promises to help the poor, permitted corruption that was fueled
by drug trafficking and was behind attacks that armed gangs made
on his critics. Aristide, who was once backed by the United States,
had denied these charges."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/03/01/national1354EST0651.DTL
"The crisis in the US has been growing since Bush's party won
flawed legislative elections in 2000, and corporate donors
gave them millions of dollars in aid. Opponents said Bush broke
promises to help the poor, permitted corruption that was fueled
by oil trafficking and was behind attacks on the patriotism of
his critics. Bush, who was once backed by the United States,
had denied these charges."